Living twenty four into seven

You have wings?
Want to fly? Fly, but you may get lost among
the tall trees and the floating clouds.

If you fly low, you will be safe.
If you seal your lips, you will live light,
The other path will take you on one
full of pot holes and boulders, and suddenly,
you may discover yourself at a dead end.

Walking under the burning sun is,
too painful,
you may not encounter a shade
a tree can provide,
one you can rest underneath,
Keep to the left, and keep close to the crowd,
Follow others, that's life.

If you dream big, and different,
Just draw in, the people and the rivers, and the darkness,
along with the light,
turn into a whirl pool of love,
Love even those, who discard you as a use and throw pen,
or a used condom, or a ladder to climb to some peak,
and walk away
without scruples or with some
loud justifications for their deeds,
Love them, because they are too weak and crippled
in their souls.

Feel the surge of warmth, from a distance,
Be in the hallow, with a prayer in your lips,
Even though for some moments.
Such moments hardly come by, and lift you a little,
And you breathe in the air that has
a different fragrance.
You have been there and have stretched your hand
during a fall,
Nobody may look back, nobody may remember
that once you had ground your bones and churned your blood
to light a candle when their houses were dark
and their hearts were broken,
while their bodies
were hot and needed a presence.

Your eyes may betray you a whole can of tears
Still smile through the haze
Toil through the day, with the mounds of thoughts,
Weighing you down,
and sleep, waiting for another day,
and another day,
May be a day will come
when you will not have to wait,
for nothing.

Religion and Culture

Whenever I go to Puri, this thought always comes to my mind when I see the flood of people rushing into the temple to get a 'Darshan' of our beloved deities, Lord Jagannath, Bhalabhadra and Subhadra. All these people are driven by beliefs, a faith that the Lord will bless them and save them from all their troubles. After all, life is full of ups and downs, smiles and suffering and it is natural to have a God, a faith, which will keep us hopeful and stable in the time of setbacks and dangers. Not only Hindu people, all religious communities have their own Gods and Goddesses, whether in an idol form or not. Sometimes miraculous things happen, they do happen and we think that God is our saviour.

If we look into the history of civilization, we can know how, from worshiping the elements in Nature, like the Sun,the Moon, the Wind,or Water,we have grown to invent innumerable faiths and beliefs and Gods and Goddesses. They are just woven into the fabric of our life inseparably. But we never remember to think that we have created these Gods and Goddesses, all the celebrations and festivals on our own , in different stages of the growth of human civilization. Yet, we are superstitious and fearful of these so-called religious things that are created by human beings, our forefathers. Surprisingly,I have found science students to be more superstitious than others. What an enigma! I still fail to understand it. It is but natural that women believe in particular ways of worshiping and observation of days in a week as auspicious or inauspicious. Men also do the same. All of us have divided our lives into superstitious days, months or similar time zones that we regard as specific religious days.

Have we ever tried to know if there is any truth behind these man-made religious rituals? Do we ever question whether the people who made these rules were really wise or they simple inserted it into the frame of the society for the sake of power and importance? We simply follow what our ancestors were doing. In the name of Gods our business flourishes, we built enough numbers of temples, churches, Dargahs, and Gurudwaras, but never show that much compassion for the human society that is deprived. poor, illiterate and differentiated.

I am not at all telling that we should stop worshiping our Gods or stop going to religious places. These things enrich our culture and add flavour to our life which otherwise will be too boring. A life full of celebration is a happy life which unites people and hearts. But it is our culture, our rich culture. There is only one religion in this world, that of humanism. If we fast or go vegetarian on certain days of the week, we don't do any good to the underprivileged people of our society. We must go on celebrating our culture , but we should stop confusing it with religion. Humanism is the only religion that can make the world a better place, not fasting or going to religious places or chanting hymns during rituals. We go on fighting and killing people in the name of people, casteism is still prevalent in our society and prevents many hearts from being united. Until we keep confusing religion with culture, we can never truly be liberated. Our culture is our legacy, let's protect and preserve it and let it light up our lives, but let's follow one religion, the religion of HUMANISM.

Our faith is our God, Our God is with us irrespective of our castes, community and faith and we all will be rewarded or punished because of our doings, not because we have angered or pleased some God by missing a ritual or by performing a ritual. Let's start thinking and questioning, Let's not be sheep in a herd, let's take the difficult and unbeaten path rather that the path most of the people follow. Then only our life will be fruitful. After all, we have got only one life. We have no knowledge about afterlife. Hell and Heaven are our own concepts, very-much man-made. We reap as we sow. So, let's do good things or at least don't do bad things in the name of religion.